The Spring Suit: Quick Update and A Brief Diatribe on Construction

The Update Part

S came over yesterday for a visit and to see the jacket in its current state. I was nervous, in truth, to show it to her as she hasn't been actively involved with this jacket (due to life intervening) as she was with the V8333 muslin (and the Starlet Suit jacket, of course).

The good news is that she thinks it's great - that's what she said, believably, and I'm sticking to it.

The other good news is that she corroborated my perspective that the fabric is crap - ok, really difficult to work with and suboptimal as it doesn't like ironing of any sort and, um, that's the basis of tailoring.

And the final bit of good news, which doesn't sound so good from where I'm sitting at this precise moment :-), is that she convinced me, in her understated fashion, that my sleeves were really way over-rotated toward the front. In the Starlet jacket, we rotated them a centimeter. Here, for some reason, an inch seemed good to me (actually I started with more than an inch but I've already ripped these sleeves back twice). Yeah, almost 3 times the forward rotation of the Starlet jacket. So, we repinned them in - it was actually a very mellow fitting session - and today I'll sew them in before beginning to insert the lining.

(Thing to remember: Although I feel very unfit and like I have ever-more hunching shoulders, apparently my posture isn't reflecting it to the degree that I'm feeling it.)

But back to lining... I'm not sure I've hit my stride with it. That is to say, I have most definitely not hit my stride. I worked for 5 hrs on Friday and 5 hrs yesterday and I still haven't actually inserted the freakin' thing. Of course, this worked to my advantage as, if I had, I'd not have been able to alter the sleeves this one last time.

I'm tending towards hand tailoring the sleeves into the shoulders and bagging the rest of the lining but, as I find it difficult to imagine how I'm going to affix the fashion fabric hem after bagging it, I'm concerned. How does one keep it tacked (at least at the seam points) after having machine sewn the hem shut. I know that other hems are tacked in this way - I've gone through my wardrobe. Since no one has mentioned this in any tutorial I've read, I have to assume that the matter takes care of itself - which is to say it's possible to invisibly catch stitch the hem after machine stitching the fashion fabric hem to the lining hem. My failure to envision things is a challenge.

Futhermore, I affixed the facing to my jacket before affixing the lining to it. I think this was a smart idea given how one needs to manipulate the facing and jacket shell during construction. However, now I'm a bit off-road because instructions refer to inserting the lining and the facing as one garment to the shell as the other garment. Effectively, my shell and facings are one garment and my lining is the other. Yeah, this is in the weeds but it's the world I live in these days.

Oh, wish me luck. If there were some chance in hell I could finish this today I would be so freakin' thrilled. If only so that I don't have to look at it again for a while.

The Diatribe Part

This jacket seems more and more in the wearable test garment category. As I see it that way, I'm able to learn from it rather than to simply be critical. The truth is that a jacket is a very complex garment - few get more complex than it. Muslins teach key elements about fit and, as such, they are non-negotiable in the jacket construction category, IMO. If you make a suit jacket that fits perfectly without making a muslin first (and subsequent alterations), trust me, you just got lucky. Really fucking lucky.

But muslins only tell one part of the story. Construction tells the other and it's impossible (unless you make your muslin from your fashion fabric) to perfectly extrapolate final dimensions, fabric ease, drape, wear, the way the fashion fabric will adapt to tailoring among other key elements.

In the case of a suit jacket, the muslin and the tailoring are interwoven concepts. Neither exists without the other and they come together alchemically, complexly. Why should I assume that I will have all of my construction kinks ironed out just because I've made 3.5 muslins? I've only made one finished garment (almost). I've made 3 jacket linings in my life. I've struggled with them all because I've only done it 3 times, at yearly intervals. I can whack out a skirt cuz I've made many. Linings, not so much.

Let's add to this that jacket lining is technically a garment of its own which you make in addition to your suit jacket. It's not an afterthought (much though I tend to see it that way going in).

And, above, I'm just speaking of construction in terms of lining as my example. The construction of the jacket is this complex in myriad ways. In some respects, it makes the muslin look easy. (Note: Not quite.)

Anyway, in between moments of painful conceptualizing, these are the thoughts I have, which I'm refining all the time.

I'm sure you haven't heard the last of it.

Today's question: If you've bagged a lining, how did you manage securing the hem after sewing the lining to the fashion fabric? Any info is greatly appreciated.